Michael H.: You are delusional. There is nothing "respectful and honorable" about Corporate Greed causing 1000 unnecessary deaths. Your "respectful and honorable" delusion is a product of mass media propaganda Bull $hit to distract us from what a Rotten Society America is and pivot us instead to a Sob Story Soap Opera about the victims. Think about it, Michael. While you're daydreaming your "respectful and honorable" fantasies, Big Brother is screwing you and you don't even notice.
My grandmother was going on this trip with her older sister and their grandmother. They arrived moments after it pulled away from the dock. Lucky for them.
@@alexysq2660 Thank you, I found it. How interesting and similar. Great-great grandma took the girls into the city and they spent the day together. When they arrived home my great-great grandfather told her he thought they were lost in the disaster. He went to the shore and saw a woman in a cart covered with a blanket, but she had the same pattern dress as his wife. Needless to say when they showed her face, it was not his wife. Grandma would remember how the street was full of children the day before and the day after it was empty. All her friends died on board. She lived until 1988.
@@ropcha Oh, wow: ours truly are quite similar family stories when it comes to this, no ? On the one hand, it seems amazing that such a thing as that might actually be the case; then again, i suppose it truly, in a way, shows just how very connected in some sense we all are as beings and, in this phenomenon of "existence" which we all share more or less in common, if that possibly makes any sense at all ? That is utterly tragic though, the sudden grim reality your grandmother would have been forced to face and accept on returning home. One can never, i would imagine, come fully to terms with so awfully sad an experience 😔.... ~💚
Often one is furious at one’s self for being late, especially with church events. But like a few people who missed the Titanic (or had to change ships), the sheer shock of learning what happened turns to gratitude. Sometimes survivors guilt kicks in. But fate is fickle sometimes. A few people on 9/11 survived because they were late to work to vote…..a few people who survived the 1996 (?) bombing actually decided to skip work that day on 9/11. A few said it was due to a bad feeling in their guts. I was a documentary on UA-cam (full hour) that a grandmother with two grand daughters ran off the ship suddenly before the gangway was drawn up. She had had nightmares the night prior about the ship catching fire. She ran off like an angry bovine…kids in each hand. Refused to get back on. Her impulsive run probably saved her grandchildren’s lives. Never mess with female intuition. What we lack in strength, God gave us a 6th sense to detect danger and death.
This reminds me of the Eastland disaster in Chicago. People expecting to go out for a nice day on the river end up dying at the pier when the ship tips over. Very sad and tragic story.
That hit me as well. I grew up in Cicero (hometown of most of the victims) and heard many stories about it. It really scarred the community, the outrage and distrust was still strong after 60 years.
I did my own research and the reason why the Captain didn't beach the ship immediately makes sense but was ultimately probably the wrong choice. The Captain feared the steering gear would break down in the strong currents and leave the Slocum helpless in midriver, plowed full speed ahead. He aimed for a pier at 134th Street, but a tugboat captain warned him off, fearing the burning ship would ignite lumber stored there. Van Shaick made a run for North Brother Island, a mile away, hoping to beach.
There were scoundrels on boats who came to the "rescue" of the passengers of the General Slocum only to steal jewels and other valuables from the people who had survived the disaster and then pushed them underwater with their paddles. Something similar happened on the MS Estonia in 1994 only with the difference that the robbers were on board of the sinking ship. During disasters people display either their worst or their best.
Yea, another documentary mentioned that!!! That made me so MAD 😡🤬 I hope those greedy cowards went to Hell! On a flip side some officers “stole” some boats and tried to rescue those drowning in the water. Stealing to try to save lives is 100% legit in my book. 🤔....like if a tornado hits and “stealing” towels, medical supplies, and food/water for those hurt or traumatized by the tornado from a store near by. Personally I would try to offer to pay or have a payment plan to pay the store back over time. People need help now (hard for first responders sometimes to arrive sometimes so to help stabilize people at least) and would pay later. Especially if the store was hit and supplies was still useful, just spread about. I would make sure the staff is ok/getting help first. I would also give them my info so I could pay later. I would NOT take fancy electronics or expensive items!!! Maybe batteries for flash lights at the max. Tools to help remove people trapped in wreckage.
@@equarg No such thing as hell. But you might say that there is some kind of "karma" because the wicked and greedy always end up ruining their own lives, either by people casting them out or them falling victims to other wicked and greedy people. Many criminals who got away with serious crimes got their "juste desserts" when other criminals betrayed them and had them killed years later. Bad people socialize with other bad people and bad people inherently destroy themselves either by their own actions or from action of their "friends" and collegues.
"During disasters people display either their worst or their best." Quite right. When things are looking grim that's when you can truly assess which people are noble and good at core and which are selfish and wicked.
It's not mentioned in the video, but the life-jackets were also weighted down with iron bars & lead weights placed inside them, to make them meet the legal weight-requirements for life-jackets. When dropped in the water, they sank like stones... The wooden decks were covered with layers & layers of lacquer & varnish (without previous layers having been first removed & sanded down), walls were similarly coated with layers & layers of oil-based enamel paint, all of which combined to make the ship an even bigger firetrap than it was already. When passengers tried jumping overboard to escape the flames, many of them were chopped into mincemeat by the paddlewheels...
Thank you for the additional context and info, Paul. Another commenter mentioned the lead weights inside the jackets-absolutely incredible what they could get a way with.
@@caseylayton4898 Not at all. The captain continued to steam on, presumably full ahead, while the ship was engulfed and passengers jumped overboard in flames and in panic. Imagine the suction the paddlewheels generated and their position: they plowed through the castaways floundering alongside the ship. No wonder they died by the hundreds. It's blood-chilling!
@@StunningHistory I don’t know about “get away with.” After the disaster, when it was found out what the life preserver company had done, there was separate, rather large legal battle over it.
This disaster reminds me of The Eastland Disaster, in Chicago, both vessels loaded with families headed for picnics. What should have been a joyous day for everyone, quickly turned to tragedy. Very sad.
Every time I see stories like this, I think about how we need more criminal charges for disgusting negligence like this. Every single board member of that cruise line should be locked up forever for over 1,000 counts of negligent homicide. Fines don’t stop these corrupt people from creating scenes of horror and disparity.
I'm subscribed to many man-made disaster youtube channels and a very common theme is the people responsible for the tragedies are rarely held accountable. Even with mounds of evidence against them they'll be aquitted (or in this case padoned) for no apparent reason. (Seriously, the ship owner was legally held responsible for over A THOUSAND deaths and still got pardoned???) It's incredibly agitating. It's as if simply being a wealthy ship owner or real estate mogul makes judges and politicians assume they're innocent no matter what. Classism is a very real problem in the American legal system, a problem that has persisted for centuries.
This was a tragedy that was 100% preventable. You had the deadly combination of 1000+ people, most of whom did not know how to swim (and many of the women couldn't anyway with their heavy skirts and petticoats), a wooden ship with non-functioning safety equipment that was a virtual firetrap, a captain who had apparently brushed off a boy who tried to warn him about the fire, and who had apparently not been too concerned about making sure the life jackets, life preservers, and water hoses actually worked, and the lifeboats were accessible, and a crew that was NOT trained to handle emergencies. The boat also caught fire in a part of the river where the currents were extremely treacherous, making swimming difficult even for the most experienced swimmers on board. The resulting combination was a huge loss of life, with many of the victims being children. I can't imagine the horror some of these parents felt when they put life jackets on their kids and thought they were saving them, and then the kids sank like stones due to the defective life jackets. Many victims got caught in the massive paddle wheels and died, and others simply just drowned, especially when other panicked passengers clung to them and pulled them down. There were some noble people who DID rush out and actually rescue some of the victims, but others were only after the valuables that some of the drowning passengers were wearing, like watches and bracelets, and after robbing these people of their valuables, they were left to drown. The General Slocum eventually beached on North Brother Island, which had a mental asylum there at the time. Medical personal and even some of the patients rushed out to help the victims, but many of them were sadly past saving. While this disaster made headlines at the time, it was sadly overshadowed by other disasters that affected NYC, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911, the Titanic disaster a year later, and the start of WW1 two years after the Titanic sinking. But the victims of this disaster need to be remembered, especially since so many of them were children!
Ok. I can't be the only one who mistakenly read the title of the video in the thumbnail as "General Scrotum". I mean, I won't lie, it caught my eye. I double-taked and clicked on it, so, well done, sir. Props to you for accidentally using the gutter of my mind to get me into watching educational content.
Yes, the ship was named after a real Civil War officer. But the movies having a character named Gen. Slocum was a tribute to this important if somewhat obscure piece of New York City history
@Ship Geek. One of the best put together documentaries, of this disaster, that I have seen so far. I also watched on t.v., (possibly PBS), about 15-17 years ago, on a set of ship fires entitled "ABLAZE, FIRE AT SEA", and one of their documentaries was based on the 'General Slocum'. It was, for the most part, reenactments of the tragedy. It also was pretty well done, but this was much more informative. The other they covered was the ship fire, that sunk the 'S.S. YARMOUTH CASTLE'. Is it possible, you can maybe cover that one, also? I already know the quality of it, will be accomplished superbly! Keep up the impressing work, I'll keep viewing as I recently discovered you're channel.
Thank you! A channel called Fascinating Horror did an excellent job covering the Yarmouth Castle. Highly recommended. Here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/IqSXn2Iqz-0/v-deo.html
Still does. There are still airline and ship disasters that go on to have no consequences for corporate and government negligence like Alaska Airlines flight 261, 2001 Avjet Gulfstream III crash, American Airlines flight 587, MV Derbyshire, MV Rockness, S.S. Marine Electric... the list goes on. Nobody ever gets jail time and other than being dragged into a courtroom and forced to pay a settlement there is never any consequence. If there ever is a conviction they always lay the blame on the people at the lowest possible level like with the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision that ended up getting one person wrongfully accused and thrown under the bus by his own employers who were actually responsible that ended up with him murdered by a family member of one of the victims which of course his employers escaped all responsibility for too.
@@dillonhunt1720 ,,are you talking about the mid air collision where the air traffic controller was blamed for everything, even though he was alone and occupied by two screens full of planes? It wasn't his fault, but he was blamed and later murdered by a family member of one of the passengers that died. It was a terrible tragedy all around!!😣
My Great Grandfather was an assistant pastor at St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church when this happened and he personally presided over 600 funerals in the 2 weeks after the General Slocum sank and it changed his life from that day forward.
The disaster proved once and for all that large companies/corporations almost always get away with their wrongdoings and evil deeds, regardless whether they claim a few lives (dock workers) or hundreds of souls (passengers and crew). Top management cannot give two hoots. The most appropriate retribution for them is long jail time and - especially - fortunes confiscation.
That is intellectually slothful, and fails to lay shares of the blame on many other doorsteps that deserve it. There were many more people at fault here...and Knickerbocker Steam Company was hardly a "big corporation" even by the standards of the time.
@@MGower4465 but under who's direction do all the others operate? I don't know what business you work for but I haven't worked for one where you could fart without management permission, let alone spend money. Also lazy to lay blame on individuals but ascribe all success to the Corp as a whole. Either it succeeds or fails individual or as a whole, you don't get to pick and choose
@@evil1by1 They all operate under orders of those anove. In fheory. But once spending money is authorized, bosses get the receipts and almost never check further. Receipts could be easily forged. My point is the original poster jumped to corporate greed when every problem that led to this slaughter could have been individuals gaming slack systems for personal gain, and that it wasn't necessarily the top directors doing it. This was an era when the bosses wanted to be seen living the life of a rich magnate, not walking the piers checking the boats personally. They had minions for that. Did you check the order for rope arrived, Minion? Yes, sir. Did the minion check? Was the rope really there? Was it the right rope? How would the minion know? Even in a corporation, the CEO is not king.The Board of Directors can pass demands for cost cutting to the CEO, and since the Board hires the CEO, they also fire the CEO. But they don't work for the corporation...most actually work for another, unrelated corporation. Others are linked to investment firms who push extra hard for profit at any xost since their bosses, or they personally, have sunk lots of money into the company. Malfeasance can come from outside the company. Blaming others for setbacks and grabbing glory for wins is just human nature. Politicians blame the prior officeholder for everything, for years after the election. Every coach of a sports team has bemoaned the last one's bad recruiting for a bad first few seasons. Most of us hsve started jobs and been convinced our own predecessor was an idiot...we just don't usually bother to say so because nobody is listening. And if you credit everyone except yourself for good things, you're a great person, and your peers will wave as they get promoted ahead of you. Share credit, but if you want to get that next bum0, you have to spin the win as being because you went a little beyond everyone else to make it a success. You just don't go so far as to throw your coworkers DOWN to move yourself UP. You only need a little more kudocount to get to the top of the list, you don't need to take all.
My grandmother and her two daughters were on ship. All went in water where both girls drowned. Grandfather (police officer) found her and my dad born in 1905.
It's tragic that we as a society tend to forget these man made disasters which of course leads to them being repeated, most recently with the Conception fire which killed 34 people.
@@StunningHistory maybe a suggestion for a cool topic for a video. You must have heard of Wilhelm Gustloff Steuben and Goya tragedy. I'm Polish and those happened in Poland during second world war.. Gustloff till today is worst ship disaster ever recorded.
So the captain served only 6 years of his 10 year sentence. Thought he did nothing wrong. And then felt vindicated when the President pardoned him. Absolutely disgusting.
In some ways, I can't help but feel the Captain and crew were made scapegoats in order to distract from the corruption in the Knickerbocker Steamship Line since they falsified records, bribed inspectors etc. Even if the crew was properly trained, given the state of the equipment and lifejackets combined with there only being 40 men recruited mostly because they visited the docks to keep order amongst over 1000 passengers there was only so much they could've done. In the end, people died because the company wanted to horde money for its owners rather than pay to replace the equipment, overhaul the ship or pay the crew a living wage, and like the Iroquois Theater Fire a few months earlier, the owners bought their way out and acted as if nothing had happened
Very dignified, thank you very much. I immediately thought of a ballad by the German poet Theodor Fontane: "John Maynard", written in 1886. It has its origins in the misfortune of the "Erie" on August 9, 1841 on the journey from Buffalo to Detroit. Also a fire on board, full steam ahead, many passengers lost their lives. History repeats itself ...
About 13 days after the General Slocum sank, the SS Norge, a Danish passenger liner sank on the 28th by striking Hasselwood Rock near Helen's Reef, claiming 635 passengers and crew and about 160 more were saved, including the captain.
Absolutely. You and @Fox Star Line in the comments have inspired me to retitle this video. It really is a mostly forgotten tragedy, which is a shame. - Sam
My great grandmother was on the Slocum. She was asked to babysit for a family that was attending the picnic that day. She was able to jump in the water with the baby she was watching and swim him to shore. Her name was Louise Gailing and the baby's name was Stephen Erklin. My mom said my great grandmother NEVER talked about this day. Louise received a certificate from the town of Nutley, NJ about her bravery that day, and it is displayed in our living room.
A young boy burst into the captain's cabin stating that he could smell smoke. Instead of investigating the arrogant jerk chased the child out. For that alone he deserved more than 10 years. How many lives could have been saved?
Hey! Just found your channel and I love it! Could you do a video on the “Lakeland” she was a large steamer on the great lakes that went down with a cargo of automobiles
I first heard of this disaster from the song downed and drowned by the longest johns and I was curious about what happens and decided to look it up and I’m so glad I found your channel when I did you handled it very respectfully and gave very good information on the whole thing. I subscribed and I’m looking forward to the next video.
What? No mention whatsoever of the fact that city inspectors had recently approved the ship fit for service. After the disaster an overhaul of inspection procedures was instituted. Many other ships on the river were also found to be unfit.
Thank you for bringing us this history. It's so sad that it never gets mentioned anymore. It's lessons are still salient today. May the dead Rest In Peace and their names and their tragedy not be forgotten again.
This is indeed a very sad story. All those people lost their lives because the steamboat company didn’t perform regular maintenance like they were required to. Such a tragedy. All those scared people. And the children😢😢😢. R.I.P. to those victims and their families. Things like this should never happen. Yes terrible things happen in life that are beyond our control. But something like this could have been prevented or at least not as bad
I grew up directly next to St.John cemetery in Middle Village queens NY and inside the cemetery was a gorgeous headstone for the Slocum and the dead. It always stick with me because it seemed so sad and yet so unknown. Very few people have ever heard of it.
Because of this video, I found out that I have the same birthday as the second to last survivor, who was also the longest living survivor of the disaster. RIP Catherine Connelly.
One other interesting note of the disaster is that the mentioned nearby hospital on North Brother Island was in fact a quarantine hospital which confined people with diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis. Both staff and patients acted heroically though there must have been worry about saving people from the water only to pass on terrible disease. This hospital is where a decade later ‘Typhoid Mary’ came to live out the rest of her life, imprisoned when she refused to comply with the condition that she not working as a cook. The impressive ruins of the hospital remain on the island today.
As a tugboat Captain working in, & transiting New York Harbor, & Long Island Sound, seldom did I pass North Brother Island, without thinking about that horrible disaster.
Thank you for doing this. I was made aware of the disaster when I read an old book publish in 1919 at my local library in 1994 the book sited the disaster as a boiler explosion that killed soldiers. Since I had never heard of this before and it was a book of incomplete accounts from news papers around the turn of the century, I concluded the accounts suspect at best. Yet, the boat Slocum the name of the general kept coming up with words greatest disasters I read other books. Thank you for doing a more complete assessment in your video.
Hey Aaron, thank you for watching, and for the kind words. Isn't it amazing how "journalistic" sources of the time can be so incomplete and inaccurate? Though one could say the same about today's journalistic standards. I appreciate your viewership and support. - Sam
@@StunningHistory I wish I could find that book. It listed other disasters including one that killed many soldiers in the biggest boiler explosion at the time. I thought Slocum and it were the same for many years.
2 days ago, Saturday, June 15th, 2024 a friend and I did an urban boat cruise from the Long Island Sound to the East River turning back after passing a most calm (it usually isn't) Hellgate. We stopped and paused at North Brother Island in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of the Genl. Slocum Disaster. A sad moment.
A young boy had discovered the fire in it's early stages and tried to tell Captain Van Shaick. He was rudely dismissed and the Captain did not investigate for himself.
As a slight addition, a bronze plaque exists, in Astoria, Queens, by the hell Gate bridge in Astoria park. I only learned of the disaster, after regularly jogging past the memorial made me curious. Good story. Well told!
She was. She was born in 1903. It really is sad, especially considering it was just her and her parents. Her sisters, 2 aunts and two cousins also perished. I just think it's sad that people forget something as tragic as this just because there weren't any "important" (in society's eyes) people on board.
@@OneworldOnelove36 I don't think its to do with class at all. Its just not a 'romantic' story. You cannot get more romantic than the Titanic with a ship dubbed unsinkable and with poor and rich people alike on board to find a better life in America only t meet tragedy at the hands of a monster iceberg in the middle of the sea. There is something very 'unromantic' (and I use that in want of a better word) about a ship catching fire with people sinking to their deaths in rotted lifejackets only metres from the shore, people would rather just forget it because its just tragic.
@@chatteyj Utter nonsense. Almost all of it. "You cannot get more romantic than the Titanic " Nothing remotely romantic about it. The shipping lines back in those days made most of their money from the third class passengers since that's what most paying passengers were, yet the third class got stuffed away in cramped cabins in the lower decks and were forbidden from entering any other decks. These ships were closer to slave ships in their disposition than they were to modern day cruise ships. Since they were powered by coal in vast quantities (this was before motor ships in the 1930's made fuel costs significantly lower) and coal was expensive the third class passengers paid for the "privilege" of paying for the coal and the operation of the ship. "with a ship dubbed unsinkable" That's a popular *myth* . White Star Line never called the ship unsinkable themselves. *Nobody* called it unsinkable either when it sailed out on its maiden voyage. You know why? Because *nobody* was interested in her technical qualities and all the newspapers just wrote pages after pages about her opulent *luxury* (solely for the first class of course) and her *size* . Luxury and size sold. That was pulled all the headlines. In fact the only ones who wrote about her water-tight compartments were technical magazines which mostly engineers and technicians read in those days (regular people neither had the interest nor the money to indulge in technical interests in special magazines). Anyways, in those technical magazines they described the water tight compartments and said that this made the Titanic "practically unsinkable". A very apt and professional technical description. *After* the Titanic sank some people remembered what they had read in those technical magazines. And since people have a nasty habit (they love streamlining and simplifying stories by cutting out all the variables and have a penchant of a reductionist view which is awfully one-dimensional) of remembering only what they want to remember this "practically unsinkable" became just "unsinkable" in the mind of the public. I can assure you that nobody on the ship, including the chief designer Thomas Andrews, ever said "Titanic is unsinkable" when she went on her maiden voyage or even before. There's a popular myth that Julius Caesar said "You too my dear Brute?" when he was stabbed to death. That is complete fiction from Shakespeare's drama "Julius Caesar". Sadly people today take Shakespeare's drama as *historical fact* . The ancient-people-believed-Earth-was-flat is another since the Greek Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth 3 centuries BC and he was only off by 1%(!). Don't believe in historical myths. " with poor and rich people alike on board to find a better life in America" Stop right there. Now you're getting ridiculous. The poor, yes, did pay what for them was a fortune to seek a better life in the Americas (not all of them went to the USA mind you) but what makes you think those who already were rich needed to go to the Americas to "find a better life in America" - are you completely out of your mind? Many of the rich passengers were already rich Americans and they used ocean liners for pleasure trips back and forth to Europe or on business trips. Rich Europeans on the other hand had absolutely no reason to go to the Americas since they already had their business, titles and money in Europe and planned on keeping it there. There's a fundamental difference between the rich 1st class passengers and the poor 3rd class passengers. For the rich it was just another trip of the many they had. They were the only ones who had enough money to enjoy trips by ship to distant lands. For them this trip across the ocean was but one in many they had done before. For the third class passengers it really was a one-way trip and since most of them were unskilled and non-educated peasants and workers they had heard there was "more space" for the little people in the Americas (bear in mind that the USA only had a population of 95 million in 1912 whereas Germany alone had 65 million in 1912 in a far smaller country. Why are you bundling them together? It wasn't a one-way trip for the 1st class passengers. "only t meet tragedy at the hands of a monster iceberg " Actually the iceberg was probably a lot smaller (which explains why they spotted it too late). You see only 10% of an iceberg is visible above water and the massive part of it is invisible under the water. Above water it certainly didn't look like a monster and in fact for those who witnessed it happen from the outside it appeared rather small next to the Titanic as it brazed its side. The real tragedy is how the ship went almost at full speed to get to New York at noon rather than to go around the field of icebergs (they received several warnings) and arrive at dusk. Ismay wanted Titanic's first voyage to be "perfect" and for the press and people to witness her arrival at the perfect time of the day and not at dusk when everybody has already gone to sleep or at home. Since the order was Captain Smith's the responsibility of the disaster war mostly his - however unexpected it might have been to him. "There is something very 'unromantic' (and I use that in want of a better word) about a ship catching fire with people sinking to their deaths in rotted lifejackets only metres from the shore, people would rather just forget it because its just tragic." Not at all. It has *nothing* to do with that. Titanic was forgotten too by the 1950's. Why? Well, there was this war called World War One which killed 20 million, then there was this war called World War Two which killed 60 million. Between there was this nasty period called The Great Depression which made millions lose their jobs and go homeless and hungry. I'm afraid a ship sinking in 1912 with merely 1500 dead is going to appear like utterly insignificant compared to those tragedies. The most deadly maritime disaster was the sinking of the German refugee ship the Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic with a reported 9000 passengers on board in 1944. But since it was in the middle of WWII and the Germans were the villains in this war this tragedy was forgotten. Yes, the sinking of the Titanic was almost completely forgotten by the 1950's. What re-ignited the interest of the public was Walter Lord's best-selling 1955 novel "A Night to Remember" and the later 1958 film which made a whole new generation utterly unfamiliar with the sinking (most of them weren't even born in 1912 or too young to remember/care). Alas the disaster was largely forgotten again until Robert Ballard found the long lost wreck in 1985. But people remember it today don't they? Not quite. In 2012 at the centenary of the sinking there were a TON of Tweets from young people which said:"What Titanic was real?? I thought that was just a movie." My point is that you shouldn't base anything on the fickle minds of people and certainly not their version of "history". They know next to nothing. "people would rather just forget it because its just tragic." They forgot the Titanic too in a matter of a few decades. Almost everybody were completely unaffected by it whereas the later WW1 affected *everybody* , The Great Depression affected the poor and the rich (many banks went bust and with them people's savings...) and then the most destructive conflict in human history WW2 (it took Britain 60 years to pay back the war loans and the last payment was in 2006 and there were still destroyed houses from WWII in European cities into the 1970's). Titanic is remembered because it was the "perfect disaster". It was wholly bizarre in its nature. The largest ship in the world became utterly helpless and sunk on its maiden voyage. People also wrongly assumed that with the advent of wireless telegraphs a ship would be able to call upon help and thus everybody would be saved by other ships hearing the call and everybody would be saved... This is why Titanic had few liveboats. In any disaster it was assumed she would stay afloat long enough to ship passengers to rescue ships and then go back for more passengers. What's even more bizarre is that Titanic just happened to encounter a lone iceberg and nearly missed it. It's just so unfortunate that a mere feet could have meant the ship successfully avoids the grazing it got from the iceberg. And how about the fact that the iceberg buckled the plates leading to leaks in 5 water tight sections when the ship was designed to stay afloat with the 4 most forward all flooded. Just 1 more than what was needed to stay afloat. How bizarre. The real tragedy at the time wasn't that just the third class passenger died. Had the ships only carried third class passengers nobody would have cared much. No, the fact that the rich and famous drowned alongside them was the real shocker. John Jacob Astor was one of the most wealthy men in the world at the time so him drowning with all the common people was unthinkable at the time. People only cared about the rich and famous dying back in those days. In fact it's no different today. What do you think gets more headlines, thousands dying in a horrible war in some war-torn country or a celebrity dying? Same thing in 1912. That many rich and "famous" (by 1912 standards) died in the sinking was the culprit. Had it been only poor third class passengers the sinking wouldn't have been a fraction as famous as it is today. Nobody cares when poor people die en masse. Fact.
2. "There is something very 'unromantic' (and I use that in want of a better word) about a ship catching fire with people sinking to their deaths in rotted lifejackets only metres from the shore," This is where it's clear you have no idea what makes certain disasters remembered while others forgotten. It had NOTHING do to with any "romantic" notions. That whole idea is *absurd* . What matters is these three factors: 1. The wholly bizarre set of events which set up a perfect disaster which should never have happened and was wholly avoidable. 2. The richest people drowning alongside the poor. The rich were influential people "cared about". 3. The mysteriously lost wreck which wasn't discovered in 1985 which is why nobody really knew exactly what had happened until the wreck was discovered in 1985 and it was revealed that all those who had claimed the ship had broken in two were right (their statements were ignored back in 1912 as this would raise questions whether the ship itself was poorly built). Romantic? What a bizarre assessment. You live in Hollywood lala-land and its manufactured drama. People remember the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 because it spelled the end of airships. There is a famous recording and footage of the crash so the disaster remained popular for years. The famous rock band Led Zeppelin even had the famous Hindenberg burning on the cover of their LP. Led Zeppelin being one of the most influential and popular bands of the late 60's and 70's. Relatively few died in the Hindenburg disaster. The majority survived. The footage made it famous as well as the live coverage by the local radio speaking about the disaster just as it happened before their eyes. I don't think you're qualified to assess anything let alone disasters and what makes them remembered.
Although the captain is always responsible in the end, in this case the reason this captain did not beach the ship was fear that speeding towards land would cause wind to feed the flames. The blame should have fallen on the company for lack of maintenance though. Although the captain should have had fire drills, I'm not sure his reporting of conditions on board would have resulted in anything other than the loss of his job, and in his 70s his job options were surely limited.
Captain: did what he could to save lives, gets 10 years. Owners: were blatantly negligent and caused this disaster, gets a small fine they didn't even notice. Nothing has changed in 117 years.
While I do agree that the company should have been held more liable the Captain isnt entirely free from blame. This opinion is coming from a sailor but it is my belief that a Captain is responsible for the safety of his ship, crew and passengers. Demand your crew comes in for fire drill regardless of whether or not the company pays for it. Go to every possible authority to explain that your ship is in disrepair, damn the fear of being fired over it, peoples lives are at stake. With a 30 year career or no incidents prior this man had the salt to say, "I refuse to take this paycheck. There are numerous other ships that would be happy to have my experience. You (the company) are going to cause deaths and I will not be apart of it."
Did you watch the video? If you ask me most of the blame should be landed on the Captain. He failed to beach the ship immediately which would have meant people could have escaped to the shore instead of sinking in the river and it should be up to the captain to make sure his ship including safety features such as life jackets are ship-shape.
Also, keep in mind the numerous safety violations: the useless life jackets and hoses, and the lifeboats that were wired in place because they were considered a nuisance to deal with. Yet somehow this ship managed to pass safety inspections for THIRTEEN YEARS! The captain HAD to have known about the lack of reliable safety equipment, and yet apparently did nothing about them. If he was really concerned about safety, he would made sure that everything worked before letting 1300 people on board his ship. Also, a young boy tried to tell him that there was a fire on board, and the captain told him to go away because he was busy. So I wouldn't exactly consider him an innocent victim in all this!
My paternal ( and therefore American ), late, great-grandfather - who was all of 3 1/2 years of age at the time - his 3 elder siblings, their mum and her closest friend, had all been booked to go on that fateful excursion. When they arrived at the embarkation pier however, as the family story goes, their mum - my great-great-grandmother, who was apparently prone to the occasional premonitory sense, which would tend more often than not actually to prove accurate - took one look at the boat and pronounced, "No, we are NOT boarding that vessel ! Something tells me that to do so shall prove a grave mistake.... ". The kids of course protested and balked, and even her friend ( Kitty ) attempted to persuade her to change her mind, so as not disappoint them so. But she refused, assuring all that they would go instead to Central Park and, there, still make a lovely day of it after all, riding the Swan Boats ( !?! ) and enjoying the many other diversions which CP seems then to have offered. And that is just what they did do. Upon their eventual return home though, later that afternoon/early evening, they were greeted by the spectre of my great-great-grandfather, all colour drained from his face, pacing the floor in silent, desperate, panic and shock. When he saw them he practically fainted, announcing that he'd given them up for dead. They looked quizzically at him, sincerely having no clue as to what he was talking about. In astonishment he queried, "You mean you haven't heard ?! The boat excursion you were all to have gone on, The Slocum. The boat caught ablaze and went down in the river, taking the lives of almost all souls aboard !" Some 14 years later, one of my great-great-gran's premonitions narrowly saved her and my great-grandfather from having been aboard the ill-fated NYC Underground ( /Subway ) train which was wrecked in the infamous Malbone Street ( Brooklyn ) disaster, just shortly after the end of the first World War. She died, incidentally, in 1952, at the age of 84; my great-granddad, in 1990, at 89. ~💖
This, the Sultana, and the Eastland are the 3 worst maritime disasters in American history. Ironic that none of them truly "sank". 2 were from fire and 1 capsized in about 20 feet of water. None of them were in the oceans. All 3 on rivers, One within sight of thousands of people in New York City and one right in the middle of Downtown Chicago. All three were the result of greed, corruption, and neglect. None of the ships owners were ever held accountable, and little if anything compensated the victims. None of the victims were spared a cruel fate, but I do think of those on the Sultana. Many of them had been survivors of Andersonville prison camp. To have survived that only to meet their end on that ship.
I've read years ago that the lifejackets originally did not have the proper amount of cork in them. To make the weight correct, the manufacturers installed iron bars to make up for it. It might be an urban legend but who knows?
Somebody mentioned the Eastland earlier - as a sad example of just how badly the Slocom has been forgotten at least one website film comments that more passengers died on the Eastland than the Titanic. Their maths is a little awry - they've forgotten the crew on the Titanic, who also died (classism again|). And the scriptwriter obviously forgot - or hadn't heard of - either the Slocum or the Sultana disaster on the Mississippi. As for the speed with which the fire spread - the Bradford football stadium disaster of 1985 showed how horrifically fast a fire can spread. Apparently, in the right circumstances a house fire can be out of control in 24 seconds. Most of those stately floating wedding cakes were a disaster waiting to happen, regardless of the owners' integrity
Was it forgotten because of the social standing of its passengers, or was it forgotten because of two world wars. I am not suggesting that the victims of this disaster were in any way responsible for the two main wars of the 20th century, but the fact that the victims were German would have probably meant that their deaths took on little significence once the world wars began. There were other seafairing disasters such as the Empress of Ireland: 1915 (1,012 lost), or the Kiche Maru: 1912 (1,000 lost) that get even less coverage.
It was most likely overshadowed by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire seven years later, and then the Titanic disaster the year after that. And then WW1 started two years after the Titanic sinking. So sadly, it's easy to see how the General Slocum disaster could be forgotten in the aftermath of these other tragedies.
Actually, there is a memorial to the victims at the church where many of the passengers attended. As far as I know, it's still there. I think that the church is actually a synagogue now, but the new owners allowed the memorial to remain when they took over ownership of the building.
If the producers of this doc wish to improve it they would do well to consider adding photos or films of gatherings of survivors that have taken place over the years.
It saddens me that such an unnecessary loss of life (upper, middle, lower class) should never be a factor for survival. Poor maintenance + greed in profits. Th Sultana was another sad & horrific ship disaster that claimed Civil War Veterans. Having said that If the life vests had been in working order, did NOT change the fact that all of the wood in ship construction would still been a factor.
You did this so respectfully and honorably. You remind me of a channel called Fascinating Horror.
What a great compliment-I love his channel! Thank you!
I actually thought it was at first.same style and imagery
@@cossiebhoy1 It’s a challenge to get that HD footage from 1904 Socky
Fascinating Horror is a great channel.
Michael H.: You are delusional. There is nothing "respectful and honorable" about Corporate Greed causing 1000 unnecessary deaths. Your "respectful and honorable" delusion is a product of mass media propaganda Bull $hit to distract us from what a Rotten Society America is and pivot us instead to a Sob Story Soap Opera about the victims. Think about it, Michael. While you're daydreaming your "respectful and honorable" fantasies, Big Brother is screwing you and you don't even notice.
My grandmother was going on this trip with her older sister and their grandmother. They arrived moments after it pulled away from the dock. Lucky for them.
*@Kenneth Mensing* If you will, do also see my comment - somewhere here to be found.... ~💚
@@alexysq2660 Thank you, I found it. How interesting and similar. Great-great grandma took the girls into the city and they spent the day together. When they arrived home my great-great grandfather told her he thought they were lost in the disaster. He went to the shore and saw a woman in a cart covered with a blanket, but she had the same pattern dress as his wife. Needless to say when they showed her face, it was not his wife. Grandma would remember how the street was full of children the day before and the day after it was empty. All her friends died on board. She lived until 1988.
@@ropcha Oh, wow: ours truly are quite similar family stories when it comes to this, no ? On the one hand, it seems amazing that such a thing as that might actually be the case; then again, i suppose it truly, in a way, shows just how very connected in some sense we all are as beings and, in this phenomenon of "existence" which we all share more or less in common, if that possibly makes any sense at all ? That is utterly tragic though, the sudden grim reality your grandmother would have been forced to face and accept on returning home. One can never, i would imagine, come fully to terms with so awfully sad an experience 😔.... ~💚
And you. 😊
Often one is furious at one’s self for being late, especially with church events.
But like a few people who missed the Titanic (or had to change ships), the sheer shock of learning what happened turns to gratitude.
Sometimes survivors guilt kicks in.
But fate is fickle sometimes.
A few people on 9/11 survived because they were late to work to vote…..a few people who survived the 1996 (?) bombing actually decided to skip work that day on 9/11.
A few said it was due to a bad feeling in their guts.
I was a documentary on UA-cam (full hour) that a grandmother with two grand daughters ran off the ship suddenly before the gangway was drawn up.
She had had nightmares the night prior about the ship catching fire. She ran off like an angry bovine…kids in each hand.
Refused to get back on.
Her impulsive run probably saved her grandchildren’s lives.
Never mess with female intuition.
What we lack in strength, God gave us a 6th sense to detect danger and death.
This reminds me of the Eastland disaster in Chicago. People expecting to go out for a nice day on the river end up dying at the pier when the ship tips over. Very sad and tragic story.
That hit me as well. I grew up in Cicero (hometown of most of the victims) and heard many stories about it. It really scarred the community, the outrage and distrust was still strong after 60 years.
I did my own research and the reason why the Captain didn't beach the ship immediately makes sense but was ultimately probably the wrong choice. The Captain feared the steering gear would break down in the strong currents and leave the Slocum helpless in midriver, plowed full speed ahead. He aimed for a pier at 134th Street, but a tugboat captain warned him off, fearing the burning ship would ignite lumber stored there. Van Shaick made a run for North Brother Island, a mile away, hoping to beach.
Thank you for bringing this terrible injustice back into the public domain
Thank you for watching and supporting. - Sam
There were scoundrels on boats who came to the "rescue" of the passengers of the General Slocum only to steal jewels and other valuables from the people who had survived the disaster and then pushed them underwater with their paddles. Something similar happened on the MS Estonia in 1994 only with the difference that the robbers were on board of the sinking ship. During disasters people display either their worst or their best.
Where there is death you will always find looters.
Yea, another documentary mentioned that!!!
That made me so MAD 😡🤬
I hope those greedy cowards went to Hell!
On a flip side some officers “stole” some boats and tried to rescue those drowning in the water.
Stealing to try to save lives is 100% legit in my book.
🤔....like if a tornado hits and “stealing” towels, medical supplies, and food/water for those hurt or traumatized by the tornado from a store near by.
Personally I would try to offer to pay or have a payment plan to pay the store back over time.
People need help now (hard for first responders sometimes to arrive sometimes so to help stabilize people at least) and would pay later.
Especially if the store was hit and supplies was still useful, just spread about.
I would make sure the staff is ok/getting help first.
I would also give them my info so I could pay later.
I would NOT take fancy electronics or expensive items!!!
Maybe batteries for flash lights at the max. Tools to help remove people trapped in wreckage.
@@equarg No such thing as hell. But you might say that there is some kind of "karma" because the wicked and greedy always end up ruining their own lives, either by people casting them out or them falling victims to other wicked and greedy people. Many criminals who got away with serious crimes got their "juste desserts" when other criminals betrayed them and had them killed years later.
Bad people socialize with other bad people and bad people inherently destroy themselves either by their own actions or from action of their "friends" and collegues.
"During disasters people display either their worst or their best." Quite right. When things are looking grim that's when you can truly assess which people are noble and good at core and which are selfish and wicked.
Or they become stupid.
Very good recount of the General Slocum disaster, including the virtual demise of "Little Germany" in what is now the East Village.
It's not mentioned in the video, but the life-jackets were also weighted down with iron bars & lead weights placed inside them, to make them meet the legal weight-requirements for life-jackets. When dropped in the water, they sank like stones...
The wooden decks were covered with layers & layers of lacquer & varnish (without previous layers having been first removed & sanded down), walls were similarly coated with layers & layers of oil-based enamel paint, all of which combined to make the ship an even bigger firetrap than it was already.
When passengers tried jumping overboard to escape the flames, many of them were chopped into mincemeat by the paddlewheels...
Thank you for the additional context and info, Paul. Another commenter mentioned the lead weights inside the jackets-absolutely incredible what they could get a way with.
Lol the paddle wheel bit seems like a stretch.
@@caseylayton4898 Not at all. The captain continued to steam on, presumably full ahead, while the ship was engulfed and passengers jumped overboard in flames and in panic. Imagine the suction the paddlewheels generated and their position: they plowed through the castaways floundering alongside the ship. No wonder they died by the hundreds. It's blood-chilling!
Sickening.
@@StunningHistory I don’t know about “get away with.” After the disaster, when it was found out what the life preserver company had done, there was separate, rather large legal battle over it.
An excellent documentary on a disaster I've heard little of. But which should be a big lesson to us all.
This disaster reminds me of The Eastland Disaster, in Chicago, both vessels loaded with families headed for picnics. What should have been a joyous day for everyone, quickly turned to tragedy. Very sad.
Every time I see stories like this, I think about how we need more criminal charges for disgusting negligence like this. Every single board member of that cruise line should be locked up forever for over 1,000 counts of negligent homicide. Fines don’t stop these corrupt people from creating scenes of horror and disparity.
I'm subscribed to many man-made disaster youtube channels and a very common theme is the people responsible for the tragedies are rarely held accountable. Even with mounds of evidence against them they'll be aquitted (or in this case padoned) for no apparent reason. (Seriously, the ship owner was legally held responsible for over A THOUSAND deaths and still got pardoned???) It's incredibly agitating. It's as if simply being a wealthy ship owner or real estate mogul makes judges and politicians assume they're innocent no matter what. Classism is a very real problem in the American legal system, a problem that has persisted for centuries.
This was a tragedy that was 100% preventable. You had the deadly combination of 1000+ people, most of whom did not know how to swim (and many of the women couldn't anyway with their heavy skirts and petticoats), a wooden ship with non-functioning safety equipment that was a virtual firetrap, a captain who had apparently brushed off a boy who tried to warn him about the fire, and who had apparently not been too concerned about making sure the life jackets, life preservers, and water hoses actually worked, and the lifeboats were accessible, and a crew that was NOT trained to handle emergencies. The boat also caught fire in a part of the river where the currents were extremely treacherous, making swimming difficult even for the most experienced swimmers on board. The resulting combination was a huge loss of life, with many of the victims being children. I can't imagine the horror some of these parents felt when they put life jackets on their kids and thought they were saving them, and then the kids sank like stones due to the defective life jackets. Many victims got caught in the massive paddle wheels and died, and others simply just drowned, especially when other panicked passengers clung to them and pulled them down. There were some noble people who DID rush out and actually rescue some of the victims, but others were only after the valuables that some of the drowning passengers were wearing, like watches and bracelets, and after robbing these people of their valuables, they were left to drown. The General Slocum eventually beached on North Brother Island, which had a mental asylum there at the time. Medical personal and even some of the patients rushed out to help the victims, but many of them were sadly past saving. While this disaster made headlines at the time, it was sadly overshadowed by other disasters that affected NYC, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911, the Titanic disaster a year later, and the start of WW1 two years after the Titanic sinking. But the victims of this disaster need to be remembered, especially since so many of them were children!
It was indeed a perfect storm for tragedy. Thank you for that additional insight and commentary! - Sam
So many sad stories that are all but forgotten,the Eastland,the Sultana the Italian Hall Disaster and this.The memories soon fade.
They’re not pleasant things to remember
They’re not pleasant things to remember
Ok. I can't be the only one who mistakenly read the title of the video in the thumbnail as "General Scrotum". I mean, I won't lie, it caught my eye. I double-taked and clicked on it, so, well done, sir. Props to you for accidentally using the gutter of my mind to get me into watching educational content.
Benjamin Greenwood, ++,🤣😂😂that is one of the funniest comments I've read in awhile 😂😂LMAO at General scrotum!!🤣😂😂😆😎
If you do find a ship named General Scrotum, please let me know. There's sure to be a story there somewhere. :) - Sam
I'm not going to touch this comment.😉
@@StunningHistory You'll be the first to know. In fact, if I ever get a ship one day, maybe I'll name it exactly that.
You must find a captain who knows all the wrinkles.
A forgotten Tragedy indeed...
Yes, a very forgotten disaster
you are also here knew it,hello btw!
In the original spiderman movie there is an army officer, General Slocum, small but at least it was a nod to this terrible disaster
But General Slocum was a real person.
Yes, the ship was named after a real Civil War officer. But the movies having a character named Gen. Slocum was a tribute to this important if somewhat obscure piece of New York City history
Wow, I'm amazed I'd never heard of this tragedy before. Thanks for this very sensitive retelling.
@Ship Geek. One of the best put together documentaries, of this disaster, that I have seen so far. I also watched on t.v., (possibly PBS), about 15-17 years ago, on a set of ship fires entitled "ABLAZE, FIRE AT SEA", and one of their documentaries was based on the 'General Slocum'. It was, for the most part, reenactments of the tragedy. It also was pretty well done, but this was much more informative. The other they covered was the ship fire, that sunk the 'S.S. YARMOUTH CASTLE'. Is it possible, you can maybe cover that one, also? I already know the quality of it, will be accomplished superbly! Keep up the impressing work, I'll keep viewing as I recently discovered you're channel.
Thank you! A channel called Fascinating Horror did an excellent job covering the Yarmouth Castle. Highly recommended. Here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/IqSXn2Iqz-0/v-deo.html
I found this video after searching about her after seeing her in a book about ship tragedies
Happy you found it.
Life had a low value in those times. Favours could easily be bought and people got away with murder .... if they had money and influence.
Still does. There are still airline and ship disasters that go on to have no consequences for corporate and government negligence like Alaska Airlines flight 261, 2001 Avjet Gulfstream III crash, American Airlines flight 587, MV Derbyshire, MV Rockness, S.S. Marine Electric... the list goes on. Nobody ever gets jail time and other than being dragged into a courtroom and forced to pay a settlement there is never any consequence. If there ever is a conviction they always lay the blame on the people at the lowest possible level like with the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision that ended up getting one person wrongfully accused and thrown under the bus by his own employers who were actually responsible that ended up with him murdered by a family member of one of the victims which of course his employers escaped all responsibility for too.
@@dillonhunt1720 ,,are you talking about the mid air collision where the air traffic controller was blamed for everything, even though he was alone and occupied by two screens full of planes? It wasn't his fault, but he was blamed and later murdered by a family member of one of the passengers that died. It was a terrible tragedy all around!!😣
My Great Grandfather was an assistant pastor at St. Mark's Evangelical
Lutheran Church when this happened and he personally presided over 600
funerals in the 2 weeks after the General Slocum sank and it changed his
life from that day forward.
My grandmother and father were supposed to be on board but they were late arriving and the boat had already sailed.
This was like 115 years ago! How old r u!?
@@TheMrPeteChannel I'm 73. My father was born in 1898
@@michaeledwards4662 ohhhhhhh. Ok.
Thank You for this historic account
God bless your grandfather and father
The disaster proved once and for all that large companies/corporations almost always get away with their wrongdoings and evil deeds, regardless whether they claim a few lives (dock workers) or hundreds of souls (passengers and crew). Top management cannot give two hoots. The most appropriate retribution for them is long jail time and - especially - fortunes confiscation.
That is intellectually slothful, and fails to lay shares of the blame on many other doorsteps that deserve it. There were many more people at fault here...and Knickerbocker Steam Company was hardly a "big corporation" even by the standards of the time.
@@MGower4465 but under who's direction do all the others operate? I don't know what business you work for but I haven't worked for one where you could fart without management permission, let alone spend money. Also lazy to lay blame on individuals but ascribe all success to the Corp as a whole. Either it succeeds or fails individual or as a whole, you don't get to pick and choose
@@evil1by1 They all operate under orders of those anove. In fheory. But once spending money is authorized, bosses get the receipts and almost never check further. Receipts could be easily forged. My point is the original poster jumped to corporate greed when every problem that led to this slaughter could have been individuals gaming slack systems for personal gain, and that it wasn't necessarily the top directors doing it. This was an era when the bosses wanted to be seen living the life of a rich magnate, not walking the piers checking the boats personally. They had minions for that. Did you check the order for rope arrived, Minion? Yes, sir. Did the minion check? Was the rope really there? Was it the right rope? How would the minion know?
Even in a corporation, the CEO is not king.The Board of Directors can pass demands for cost cutting to the CEO, and since the Board hires the CEO, they also fire the CEO. But they don't work for the corporation...most actually work for another, unrelated corporation. Others are linked to investment firms who push extra hard for profit at any xost since their bosses, or they personally, have sunk lots of money into the company. Malfeasance can come from outside the company.
Blaming others for setbacks and grabbing glory for wins is just human nature. Politicians blame the prior officeholder for everything, for years after the election. Every coach of a sports team has bemoaned the last one's bad recruiting for a bad first few seasons. Most of us hsve started jobs and been convinced our own predecessor was an idiot...we just don't usually bother to say so because nobody is listening. And if you credit everyone except yourself for good things, you're a great person, and your peers will wave as they get promoted ahead of you. Share credit, but if you want to get that next bum0, you have to spin the win as being because you went a little beyond everyone else to make it a success. You just don't go so far as to throw your coworkers DOWN to move yourself UP. You only need a little more kudocount to get to the top of the list, you don't need to take all.
My grandmother and her two daughters were on ship. All went in water where both girls drowned. Grandfather (police officer) found her and my dad born in 1905.
Another documentary I watched said a cabin boy warned the captain there was a fire on board--and was dismissed by the captain.
It's tragic that we as a society tend to forget these man made disasters which of course leads to them being repeated, most recently with the Conception fire which killed 34 people.
What a nightmarish tragedy that was. And like the Slocum, mostly forgotten, unfortunately.
Great video! I cannot wait for more.
Thank you! More to come. - Sam
@@StunningHistory maybe a suggestion for a cool topic for a video. You must have heard of Wilhelm Gustloff Steuben and Goya tragedy. I'm Polish and those happened in Poland during second world war.. Gustloff till today is worst ship disaster ever recorded.
Great video! This is such a sad and frustrating story, I'm glad you're helping to tell it. Can't wait to see more videos!
Thank you for the support!
So the captain served only 6 years of his 10 year sentence. Thought he did nothing wrong. And then felt vindicated when the President pardoned him. Absolutely disgusting.
In some ways, I can't help but feel the Captain and crew were made scapegoats in order to distract from the corruption in the Knickerbocker Steamship Line since they falsified records, bribed inspectors etc. Even if the crew was properly trained, given the state of the equipment and lifejackets combined with there only being 40 men recruited mostly because they visited the docks to keep order amongst over 1000 passengers there was only so much they could've done. In the end, people died because the company wanted to horde money for its owners rather than pay to replace the equipment, overhaul the ship or pay the crew a living wage, and like the Iroquois Theater Fire a few months earlier, the owners bought their way out and acted as if nothing had happened
What a wonderful system, eh? Being able to completely dodge responsibility for crimes against the less fortunate. Its the capitalist way.
Very dignified, thank you very much. I immediately thought of a ballad by the German poet Theodor Fontane: "John Maynard", written in 1886. It has its origins in the misfortune of the "Erie" on August 9, 1841 on the journey from Buffalo to Detroit. Also a fire on board, full steam ahead, many passengers lost their lives. History repeats itself ...
Great video on a tragic but lesser known event in NYC history. Thank you for creating and sharing!
beautiful video. thank you. I posted a video of a 1911 wheeled steamer. he carries passengers. enjoyable viewing.
About 13 days after the General Slocum sank, the SS Norge, a Danish passenger liner sank on the 28th by striking Hasselwood Rock near Helen's Reef, claiming 635 passengers and crew and about 160 more were saved, including the captain.
this is truly a forgotten tragedy
Absolutely. You and @Fox Star Line in the comments have inspired me to retitle this video. It really is a mostly forgotten tragedy, which is a shame. - Sam
My great grandmother was on the Slocum. She was asked to babysit for a family that was attending the picnic that day. She was able to jump in the water with the baby she was watching and swim him to shore. Her name was Louise Gailing and the baby's name was Stephen Erklin. My mom said my great grandmother NEVER talked about this day. Louise received a certificate from the town of Nutley, NJ about her bravery that day, and it is displayed in our living room.
What a legacy! Thank you for sharing Louise’s story.
A young boy burst into the captain's cabin stating that he could smell smoke. Instead of investigating the arrogant jerk chased the child out. For that alone he deserved more than 10 years. How many lives could have been saved?
So true.
The beams on the upper structure looks so futuristic
Hey! Just found your channel and I love it! Could you do a video on the “Lakeland” she was a large steamer on the great lakes that went down with a cargo of automobiles
I just looked her up. Interesting story. I’ll look more into it, thank you!
So 1000 people just died due to inexcusable neglect and people boarded the sister ship which had the SAME DEFECTS?
I first heard of this disaster from the song downed and drowned by the longest johns and I was curious about what happens and decided to look it up and I’m so glad I found your channel when I did you handled it very respectfully and gave very good information on the whole thing. I subscribed and I’m looking forward to the next video.
Glad you found me-welcome!
fantastic video, a couple years ago i visited the former church (now a synagogue) in nyc and there are still plaques up about this disaster
What? No mention whatsoever of the fact that city inspectors had recently approved the ship fit for service. After the disaster an overhaul of inspection procedures was instituted. Many other ships on the river were also found to be unfit.
Wow your channel is underrated
I appreciate that!
Thank you for bringing us this history. It's so sad that it never gets mentioned anymore. It's lessons are still salient today. May the dead Rest In Peace and their names and their tragedy not be forgotten again.
Thank you for paying your respects and for your support. - Sam
This is indeed a very sad story. All those people lost their lives because the steamboat company didn’t perform regular maintenance like they were required to. Such a tragedy. All those scared people. And the children😢😢😢. R.I.P. to those victims and their families. Things like this should never happen. Yes terrible things happen in life that are beyond our control. But something like this could have been prevented or at least not as bad
Very solid presentation. Subscribed. 👍
Much appreciated!
I grew up directly next to St.John cemetery in Middle Village queens NY and inside the cemetery was a gorgeous headstone for the Slocum and the dead. It always stick with me because it seemed so sad and yet so unknown. Very few people have ever heard of it.
Because of this video, I found out that I have the same birthday as the second to last survivor, who was also the longest living survivor of the disaster. RIP Catherine Connelly.
One other interesting note of the disaster is that the mentioned nearby hospital on North Brother Island was in fact a quarantine hospital which confined people with diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis. Both staff and patients acted heroically though there must have been worry about saving people from the water only to pass on terrible disease. This hospital is where a decade later ‘Typhoid Mary’ came to live out the rest of her life, imprisoned when she refused to comply with the condition that she not working as a cook. The impressive ruins of the hospital remain on the island today.
As a tugboat Captain working in, & transiting New York Harbor, & Long Island Sound, seldom did I pass North Brother Island, without thinking about that horrible disaster.
Bravo! I can't believe this story is still so unknown. Excellent video!
Thank you, Tom!
The New York daily News would print something nearly every year on anniversary of the disaster.
Nice brief recap.
Thank you for doing this. I was made aware of the disaster when I read an old book publish in 1919 at my local library in 1994 the book sited the disaster as a boiler explosion that killed soldiers. Since I had never heard of this before and it was a book of incomplete accounts from news papers around the turn of the century, I concluded the accounts suspect at best. Yet, the boat Slocum the name of the general kept coming up with words greatest disasters I read other books. Thank you for doing a more complete assessment in your video.
Hey Aaron, thank you for watching, and for the kind words. Isn't it amazing how "journalistic" sources of the time can be so incomplete and inaccurate? Though one could say the same about today's journalistic standards. I appreciate your viewership and support. - Sam
@@StunningHistory I wish I could find that book. It listed other disasters including one that killed many soldiers in the biggest boiler explosion at the time. I thought Slocum and it were the same for many years.
Shocking. Well made. Thanks.
The General Slocum disaster is mentioned briefly in James Joyce's novel "Ulysses".
Well done. Sadly a product of the times Trust vs greed and negligence. Let us not forget these Souls
This, Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Iroquois Theatre, Cocoanut Grove...all attributed to GREED OF OWNERS.😢
2 days ago, Saturday, June 15th, 2024 a friend and I did an urban boat cruise from the Long Island Sound to the East River turning back after passing a most calm (it usually isn't) Hellgate. We stopped and paused at North Brother Island in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of the Genl. Slocum Disaster. A sad moment.
The General Slocum looked like such a lovely ship. So sad that her decks were the site of such a devastating tragedy.
A young boy had discovered the fire in it's early stages and tried to tell Captain Van Shaick. He was rudely dismissed and the Captain did not investigate for himself.
Yes, I recall seeing that in my research-so terrible. Thank you for watching. - Sam
I can't believe that the same company operating her sister ship didn't even bother to replace the life vests on their other ship.
Well done video, glad it randomly landed on my recommended. You deserve far more subs!
Thank you-much appreciated!
What a cacophony of disaster. So sad. People were not as important as modern day protocols demand
As a slight addition, a bronze plaque exists, in Astoria, Queens, by the hell Gate bridge in Astoria park. I only learned of the disaster, after regularly jogging past the memorial made me curious. Good story. Well told!
Excellent documentary. Thank you.
Much appreciated-thank you, Jeff!
Very sad. The last survivor lived 100 years! Must of bin a baby.
She was. She was born in 1903. It really is sad, especially considering it was just her and her parents. Her sisters, 2 aunts and two cousins also perished. I just think it's sad that people forget something as tragic as this just because there weren't any "important" (in society's eyes) people on board.
@@OneworldOnelove36 Also do to the fact they were German immigrants was probably y many didn't care.
@@OneworldOnelove36 I don't think its to do with class at all. Its just not a 'romantic' story. You cannot get more romantic than the Titanic with a ship dubbed unsinkable and with poor and rich people alike on board to find a better life in America only t meet tragedy at the hands of a monster iceberg in the middle of the sea. There is something very 'unromantic' (and I use that in want of a better word) about a ship catching fire with people sinking to their deaths in rotted lifejackets only metres from the shore, people would rather just forget it because its just tragic.
@@chatteyj Utter nonsense. Almost all of it. "You cannot get more romantic than the Titanic " Nothing remotely romantic about it. The shipping lines back in those days made most of their money from the third class passengers since that's what most paying passengers were, yet the third class got stuffed away in cramped cabins in the lower decks and were forbidden from entering any other decks. These ships were closer to slave ships in their disposition than they were to modern day cruise ships. Since they were powered by coal in vast quantities (this was before motor ships in the 1930's made fuel costs significantly lower) and coal was expensive the third class passengers paid for the "privilege" of paying for the coal and the operation of the ship.
"with a ship dubbed unsinkable" That's a popular *myth* . White Star Line never called the ship unsinkable themselves. *Nobody* called it unsinkable either when it sailed out on its maiden voyage. You know why? Because *nobody* was interested in her technical qualities and all the newspapers just wrote pages after pages about her opulent *luxury* (solely for the first class of course) and her *size* . Luxury and size sold. That was pulled all the headlines. In fact the only ones who wrote about her water-tight compartments were technical magazines which mostly engineers and technicians read in those days (regular people neither had the interest nor the money to indulge in technical interests in special magazines).
Anyways, in those technical magazines they described the water tight compartments and said that this made the Titanic "practically unsinkable". A very apt and professional technical description.
*After* the Titanic sank some people remembered what they had read in those technical magazines. And since people have a nasty habit (they love streamlining and simplifying stories by cutting out all the variables and have a penchant of a reductionist view which is awfully one-dimensional) of remembering only what they want to remember this "practically unsinkable" became just "unsinkable" in the mind of the public.
I can assure you that nobody on the ship, including the chief designer Thomas Andrews, ever said "Titanic is unsinkable" when she went on her maiden voyage or even before.
There's a popular myth that Julius Caesar said "You too my dear Brute?" when he was stabbed to death. That is complete fiction from Shakespeare's drama "Julius Caesar". Sadly people today take Shakespeare's drama as *historical fact* . The ancient-people-believed-Earth-was-flat is another since the Greek Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth 3 centuries BC and he was only off by 1%(!). Don't believe in historical myths.
" with poor and rich people alike on board to find a better life in America" Stop right there. Now you're getting ridiculous. The poor, yes, did pay what for them was a fortune to seek a better life in the Americas (not all of them went to the USA mind you) but what makes you think those who already were rich needed to go to the Americas to "find a better life in America" - are you completely out of your mind? Many of the rich passengers were already rich Americans and they used ocean liners for pleasure trips back and forth to Europe or on business trips. Rich Europeans on the other hand had absolutely no reason to go to the Americas since they already had their business, titles and money in Europe and planned on keeping it there.
There's a fundamental difference between the rich 1st class passengers and the poor 3rd class passengers. For the rich it was just another trip of the many they had. They were the only ones who had enough money to enjoy trips by ship to distant lands. For them this trip across the ocean was but one in many they had done before. For the third class passengers it really was a one-way trip and since most of them were unskilled and non-educated peasants and workers they had heard there was "more space" for the little people in the Americas (bear in mind that the USA only had a population of 95 million in 1912 whereas Germany alone had 65 million in 1912 in a far smaller country.
Why are you bundling them together? It wasn't a one-way trip for the 1st class passengers.
"only t meet tragedy at the hands of a monster iceberg " Actually the iceberg was probably a lot smaller (which explains why they spotted it too late). You see only 10% of an iceberg is visible above water and the massive part of it is invisible under the water. Above water it certainly didn't look like a monster and in fact for those who witnessed it happen from the outside it appeared rather small next to the Titanic as it brazed its side.
The real tragedy is how the ship went almost at full speed to get to New York at noon rather than to go around the field of icebergs (they received several warnings) and arrive at dusk. Ismay wanted Titanic's first voyage to be "perfect" and for the press and people to witness her arrival at the perfect time of the day and not at dusk when everybody has already gone to sleep or at home. Since the order was Captain Smith's the responsibility of the disaster war mostly his - however unexpected it might have been to him.
"There is something very 'unromantic' (and I use that in want of a better word) about a ship catching fire with people sinking to their deaths in rotted lifejackets only metres from the shore, people would rather just forget it because its just tragic." Not at all. It has *nothing* to do with that. Titanic was forgotten too by the 1950's. Why? Well, there was this war called World War One which killed 20 million, then there was this war called World War Two which killed 60 million. Between there was this nasty period called The Great Depression which made millions lose their jobs and go homeless and hungry. I'm afraid a ship sinking in 1912 with merely 1500 dead is going to appear like utterly insignificant compared to those tragedies.
The most deadly maritime disaster was the sinking of the German refugee ship the Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic with a reported 9000 passengers on board in 1944. But since it was in the middle of WWII and the Germans were the villains in this war this tragedy was forgotten.
Yes, the sinking of the Titanic was almost completely forgotten by the 1950's. What re-ignited the interest of the public was Walter Lord's best-selling 1955 novel "A Night to Remember" and the later 1958 film which made a whole new generation utterly unfamiliar with the sinking (most of them weren't even born in 1912 or too young to remember/care). Alas the disaster was largely forgotten again until Robert Ballard found the long lost wreck in 1985.
But people remember it today don't they? Not quite. In 2012 at the centenary of the sinking there were a TON of Tweets from young people which said:"What Titanic was real?? I thought that was just a movie."
My point is that you shouldn't base anything on the fickle minds of people and certainly not their version of "history". They know next to nothing.
"people would rather just forget it because its just tragic." They forgot the Titanic too in a matter of a few decades. Almost everybody were completely unaffected by it whereas the later WW1 affected *everybody* , The Great Depression affected the poor and the rich (many banks went bust and with them people's savings...) and then the most destructive conflict in human history WW2 (it took Britain 60 years to pay back the war loans and the last payment was in 2006 and there were still destroyed houses from WWII in European cities into the 1970's).
Titanic is remembered because it was the "perfect disaster". It was wholly bizarre in its nature. The largest ship in the world became utterly helpless and sunk on its maiden voyage. People also wrongly assumed that with the advent of wireless telegraphs a ship would be able to call upon help and thus everybody would be saved by other ships hearing the call and everybody would be saved... This is why Titanic had few liveboats. In any disaster it was assumed she would stay afloat long enough to ship passengers to rescue ships and then go back for more passengers.
What's even more bizarre is that Titanic just happened to encounter a lone iceberg and nearly missed it. It's just so unfortunate that a mere feet could have meant the ship successfully avoids the grazing it got from the iceberg.
And how about the fact that the iceberg buckled the plates leading to leaks in 5 water tight sections when the ship was designed to stay afloat with the 4 most forward all flooded. Just 1 more than what was needed to stay afloat. How bizarre.
The real tragedy at the time wasn't that just the third class passenger died. Had the ships only carried third class passengers nobody would have cared much. No, the fact that the rich and famous drowned alongside them was the real shocker. John Jacob Astor was one of the most wealthy men in the world at the time so him drowning with all the common people was unthinkable at the time.
People only cared about the rich and famous dying back in those days. In fact it's no different today. What do you think gets more headlines, thousands dying in a horrible war in some war-torn country or a celebrity dying? Same thing in 1912. That many rich and "famous" (by 1912 standards) died in the sinking was the culprit. Had it been only poor third class passengers the sinking wouldn't have been a fraction as famous as it is today. Nobody cares when poor people die en masse. Fact.
2.
"There is something very 'unromantic' (and I use that in want of a better word) about a ship catching fire with people sinking to their deaths in rotted lifejackets only metres from the shore," This is where it's clear you have no idea what makes certain disasters remembered while others forgotten. It had NOTHING do to with any "romantic" notions. That whole idea is *absurd* . What matters is these three factors:
1. The wholly bizarre set of events which set up a perfect disaster which should never have happened and was wholly avoidable.
2. The richest people drowning alongside the poor. The rich were influential people "cared about".
3. The mysteriously lost wreck which wasn't discovered in 1985 which is why nobody really knew exactly what had happened until the wreck was discovered in 1985 and it was revealed that all those who had claimed the ship had broken in two were right (their statements were ignored back in 1912 as this would raise questions whether the ship itself was poorly built).
Romantic? What a bizarre assessment. You live in Hollywood lala-land and its manufactured drama.
People remember the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 because it spelled the end of airships. There is a famous recording and footage of the crash so the disaster remained popular for years. The famous rock band Led Zeppelin even had the famous Hindenberg burning on the cover of their LP. Led Zeppelin being one of the most influential and popular bands of the late 60's and 70's. Relatively few died in the Hindenburg disaster. The majority survived. The footage made it famous as well as the live coverage by the local radio speaking about the disaster just as it happened before their eyes.
I don't think you're qualified to assess anything let alone disasters and what makes them remembered.
I never know about this ship but I know the Sultana now I know about her
Although the captain is always responsible in the end, in this case the reason this captain did not beach the ship was fear that speeding towards land would cause wind to feed the flames.
The blame should have fallen on the company for lack of maintenance though. Although the captain should have had fire drills, I'm not sure his reporting of conditions on board would have resulted in anything other than the loss of his job, and in his 70s his job options were surely limited.
These are good, but too short.
Captain: did what he could to save lives, gets 10 years. Owners: were blatantly negligent and caused this disaster, gets a small fine they didn't even notice. Nothing has changed in 117 years.
Sadly, many corporations try to find a scapegoat.
They’ll get what is coming to them in the end, if we are going down they are coming with us, there graves lay open
While I do agree that the company should have been held more liable the Captain isnt entirely free from blame. This opinion is coming from a sailor but it is my belief that a Captain is responsible for the safety of his ship, crew and passengers. Demand your crew comes in for fire drill regardless of whether or not the company pays for it. Go to every possible authority to explain that your ship is in disrepair, damn the fear of being fired over it, peoples lives are at stake. With a 30 year career or no incidents prior this man had the salt to say, "I refuse to take this paycheck. There are numerous other ships that would be happy to have my experience. You (the company) are going to cause deaths and I will not be apart of it."
Did you watch the video? If you ask me most of the blame should be landed on the Captain. He failed to beach the ship immediately which would have meant people could have escaped to the shore instead of sinking in the river and it should be up to the captain to make sure his ship including safety features such as life jackets are ship-shape.
Also, keep in mind the numerous safety violations: the useless life jackets and hoses, and the lifeboats that were wired in place because they were considered a nuisance to deal with. Yet somehow this ship managed to pass safety inspections for THIRTEEN YEARS! The captain HAD to have known about the lack of reliable safety equipment, and yet apparently did nothing about them. If he was really concerned about safety, he would made sure that everything worked before letting 1300 people on board his ship. Also, a young boy tried to tell him that there was a fire on board, and the captain told him to go away because he was busy. So I wouldn't exactly consider him an innocent victim in all this!
Here on the 120th anniversary of the disaster, almost exactly to the moment it began.
The greed and corruptionof Private Enterprise . The more things change , the more they stay the same .
My paternal ( and therefore American ), late, great-grandfather - who was all of 3 1/2 years of age at the time - his 3 elder siblings, their mum and her closest friend, had all been booked to go on that fateful excursion. When they arrived at the embarkation pier however, as the family story goes, their mum - my great-great-grandmother, who was apparently prone to the occasional premonitory sense, which would tend more often than not actually to prove accurate - took one look at the boat and pronounced, "No, we are NOT boarding that vessel ! Something tells me that to do so shall prove a grave mistake.... ". The kids of course protested and balked, and even her friend ( Kitty ) attempted to persuade her to change her mind, so as not disappoint them so. But she refused, assuring all that they would go instead to Central Park and, there, still make a lovely day of it after all, riding the Swan Boats ( !?! ) and enjoying the many other diversions which CP seems then to have offered. And that is just what they did do. Upon their eventual return home though, later that afternoon/early evening, they were greeted by the spectre of my great-great-grandfather, all colour drained from his face, pacing the floor in silent, desperate, panic and shock. When he saw them he practically fainted, announcing that he'd given them up for dead. They looked quizzically at him, sincerely having no clue as to what he was talking about. In astonishment he queried, "You mean you haven't heard ?! The boat excursion you were all to have gone on, The Slocum. The boat caught ablaze and went down in the river, taking the lives of almost all souls aboard !" Some 14 years later, one of my great-great-gran's premonitions narrowly saved her and my great-grandfather from having been aboard the ill-fated NYC Underground ( /Subway ) train which was wrecked in the infamous Malbone Street ( Brooklyn ) disaster, just shortly after the end of the first World War. She died, incidentally, in 1952, at the age of 84; my great-granddad, in 1990, at 89. ~💖
Thank you for this educational video. A true tragedy that I had not heard of here in Australia.
This, the Sultana, and the Eastland are the 3 worst maritime disasters in American history. Ironic that none of them truly "sank". 2 were from fire and 1 capsized in about 20 feet of water. None of them were in the oceans. All 3 on rivers, One within sight of thousands of people in New York City and one right in the middle of Downtown Chicago. All three were the result of greed, corruption, and neglect. None of the ships owners were ever held accountable, and little if anything compensated the victims. None of the victims were spared a cruel fate, but I do think of those on the Sultana. Many of them had been survivors of Andersonville prison camp. To have survived that only to meet their end on that ship.
Never forget...
I had never even heard of this!
Glad you were able to discover this story!
One of the most horrifying aspects of this tragedy is that more than half of the people aboard this ship were children.
That poor captain was the scapegoat. I hate when corporations get off with little or no consequences..
I've read years ago that the lifejackets originally did not have the proper amount of cork in them. To make the weight correct, the manufacturers installed iron bars to make up for it. It might be an urban legend but who knows?
I did not come across that in my research, but considering the total lack of care and regulation, it would not surprise me.
@@StunningHistory i think it should of junked long time before it burned
The worst and saddest maritime disaster of all time , was The Wilhelm Gustloff.
Also check out "Hell Storm".
I never knew about this disaster...
I read that people who tried to swim got caught in the wheels on the side of the boat. RIP.
God damn companies. Do they ever get penalized to the extent of individuals?
Somebody mentioned the Eastland earlier - as a sad example of just how badly the Slocom has been forgotten at least one website film comments that more passengers died on the Eastland than the Titanic. Their maths is a little awry - they've forgotten the crew on the Titanic, who also died (classism again|). And the scriptwriter obviously forgot - or hadn't heard of - either the Slocum or the Sultana disaster on the Mississippi.
As for the speed with which the fire spread - the Bradford football stadium disaster of 1985 showed how horrifically fast a fire can spread. Apparently, in the right circumstances a house fire can be out of control in 24 seconds. Most of those stately floating wedding cakes were a disaster waiting to happen, regardless of the owners' integrity
Was it forgotten because of the social standing of its passengers, or was it forgotten because of two world wars. I am not suggesting that the victims of this disaster were in any way responsible for the two main wars of the 20th century, but the fact that the victims were German would have probably meant that their deaths took on little significence once the world wars began.
There were other seafairing disasters such as the Empress of Ireland: 1915 (1,012 lost), or the Kiche Maru: 1912 (1,000 lost) that get even less coverage.
It was most likely overshadowed by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire seven years later, and then the Titanic disaster the year after that. And then WW1 started two years after the Titanic sinking. So sadly, it's easy to see how the General Slocum disaster could be forgotten in the aftermath of these other tragedies.
Greed over human life. With little to no consequences for those responsible. A pattern that runs like a red thread through the history of mankind.
Indeed.
I go to this park every other Sunday I didn’t know about this disaster
The ships destination was a picnic area in Eatons neck longisland
Bribes are power, absolutely disgraceful.
Hmm was it named Hell Gate after the fire..or just a very creepy coincidence 🤔
It was named that before. Its has something to do with turbulent waters in that area.
I have no words for this story. About as bad as it gets.
Also, I wager that the monument that commemorates this disaster has eroded into dust. Truly ad tradgedy.
How ironic. A ship turned into dust by fire and wind, a statue about it turned into dust by water and wind
Actually, there is a memorial to the victims at the church where many of the passengers attended. As far as I know, it's still there. I think that the church is actually a synagogue now, but the new owners allowed the memorial to remain when they took over ownership of the building.
@@JoMarieM I stand corrected.
If the producers of this doc wish to improve it they would do well to consider adding photos or films of gatherings of survivors that have taken place over the years.
She is not the only ship to suffer maintenance issues
It saddens me that such an unnecessary loss of life (upper, middle, lower class) should never be a factor for survival. Poor maintenance + greed in profits. Th Sultana was another sad & horrific ship disaster that claimed Civil War Veterans. Having said that If the life vests had been in working order, did NOT change the fact that all of the wood in ship construction would still been a factor.
Yes, so many variables contributed to the disaster and loss of life that day. It was the perfect storm. - Sam
The Logic of Failure. People + Greed.
My Grandmother was suppose to be on that picnic. Hahn, family.
Many of the victims are buried in a German cemetery in Maspeth Queens NY and the survivor s had a regular meeting in a nearby restaurant
What a terrible tragedy. May they Rest in Peace.
🙏🌍✌️❤️
How so horribly sad.